"Recently, aides confirmed Ahmadinejad's relationship with Iran's supreme leader Ali Khamenei, who agreed with the president's remarks that Israel should be wiped off the map, had been strained after the ayatollah issued a fatwa declaring R.E.M. had "totally sold out" with the release of Green."

"I was already into the Replacements, Hüsker Dü, and Pylon, but R.E.M was like the perfect mixture of jangle pop and college rock, plus they had this really atmospheric quality that was all their own," said the man the terrorist group al-Qaeda once blasted for spreading conspiracy rumors about the 9/11 attacks.